I thank Sacha Golob for his challenging and interesting notes on my stance on Kantian nonconceptualism, in particular also on the concept of objectivity, one’s view upon which is crucially related to how one positions oneself in the debate about nonconceptual content in Kant. It may seem from reading Golob’s criticisms that I’m not at all sympathetic to the core idea of nonconceptualism, namely the possibility of one’s representations having nonconceptual content in terms of being directed at given spatiotemporal objects independently of the application of concepts, or indeed of animals having some kind of consciousness of objects in their surroundings, with which they interact in multiple complex ways. My actual position is much more nuanced though.

However, it is true to say that my interpretation of Kant’s position does not allow for the strong form of nonconceptualist objective* intentionality that Golob argues for in his commentary and elsewhere (see Golob forthcoming), or for any strong form of non-categorially-constituted objectivity.

In his new book, Kant’s Radical Subjectivism, Schulting provides a rigorous and persuasive account of the core themes of the Transcendental Deduction. I have learnt a great deal from this work, and I am sympathetic to many of its points. In this response, however, I think it will be most interesting to concentrate on two issues where Schulting and I disagree, and where that disagreement has important structural consequences. The first issue concerns the role of objectivity in Kant’s argument, the second the prospects for nonconceptualism. I shall begin by summarising Schulting’s stance on each. I will then explain where we differ and why it matters.Read more

Robert Watt has provided an excellent précis of the main theme of my book, namely Kant’s radical subjectivism, for which I am extremely thankful. I could not have written a more succinct summary that captures the essence, give or take a few details, of what I take to be Kant’s metaphilosophical stance in the Transcendental Deduction (henceforth simply ‘the Deduction’). So I’m not going to repeat here in my own words what Watt wrote. Rather, what I am going to do is respond to the lingering questions that Watt has, in particular, as to (1) how I see the issue of “epistemic humility” and how this ties in with my thesis of radical subjectivism, and (2) why I think objective validity is not a feature of intuitions, making my position on nonconceptualism vulnerable, in Watt’s view, to being nothing more than a closet conceptualism. Another issue that Watt raises concerns what is probably the most controversial aspect of my reading of the Deduction: namely (3) the contentious claim, which I defended at length in my previous book (Schulting 2012, henceforth KDA), that the categories are all a priori derived from the principle of apperception. Despite Watt’s serious reservations and Corey Dyck’s and Andrew Stephenson’s earlier misgivings, as well as Thomas Land’s doubts about this claim (Dyck 2014; Stephenson 2014; Land 2018; cf. by contrast Quarfood 2014), I remain firmly committed to it as what is in my view the only way to explain the systematicity claim that Kant makes with respect to the two tables, as well as the only way to understand what I call the reciprocity claim that is central to the Deduction (following Henry Allison). I realise I’m perhaps a lone voice in this in current Kant scholarship, but I take comfort in the knowledge of being in the august company of Klaus Reich and Michael Wolff, who both defend the idea.[1]

I would like to begin by thanking Dennis Schulting for his warm invitation to write a response piece to the chapter in his new monograph that deals with Hegel’s critique of Kant. I learned a lot from his sensitive reflections on Kant and Hegel; in what follows, I hope my thoughts on the issue of Kant’s subjectivism are both coherent and repay Schulting’s kindness in sufficient German Idealist currency.

To Kantians, Hegel’s investigations into the logico-metaphysical structure of discursive thought have an insulting whiff of the metaphysical tradition Kant had painstakingly criticised; to many Hegelians, Hegel’s investigations into the logico-metaphysical structure of discursive thought represents the crowning glory of speculative idealism over Kant’s transcendental idealism. Historically, many seem content to either just dismiss Hegel summarily or uncritically follow him. However, as William Bristow nicely put it, we need to “develop and construct Hegel’s objection [to Kant] carefully and critically” (2007:4). Read more

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